Archive for the ‘internetz’ Category

So a couple months back I repartitioned my desktop to give more drive space to Windows 7, and also to boot first. I’ve also got Ubuntu 12.04 on the secondary partition still in use. I’ve also added a 1TB drive for my media storage.

After much thought I came to the conclusion that Windows made more sense as a daily driver in my house for a few reasons:
I run Xbox 360s on my TVs for gaming and media playback (netflix, youtube, streaming client for my M4Vs, etc). It only makes sense to take advantage of the native compatibility between the two. I’m eventually going set up DVR functionality on my Win7 box so using the 360 as a set top box is natural.
I like to play PC games occasionally. Hooked to my 42″ HDTV makes my PC much more fun, including gaming thats not on the console.

Now, I still use Linux for many uses, including exclusively on my netbook, which lives next to my chair in the living room. I love the ease of updating, raw speed and lack of malware on linux. But I think it’s ridiculous to ignore the advantages of certain platforms for no good reason. Many people will have good reasons. In this case, I don’t anymore.

Huge Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft, so I guess I have no credibility. Think what you will.

So I got the Gingerbread OTA update for my DX. In the 10 days I’ve had it, I’ve experienced the following bugs:

2 times: Network data connection dies overnight. In the morning, there is no 3G/1X icon on th phone, at all. Toggling data or wifi on or off does nothing. The only to get the 3G data back is to reboot the phone.
3 times: The phone randomly locking up & rebooting itself.

So, I called Verizon support from my phone (*611) and tell them after getting the GB OTA update I’m losing my 3G. The tech puts me on hold to “look up any alerts for this update.” A minute or so later, she returns, apologizes for the delay, and tells me the following (paraphrased):

*Google* pushed this update prematurely to some devices, including mine. It was not a Verizon update. She assured me it wasn’t anything with my specific hardware, and *Google* is going to push another update in a couple weeks to resolve it.

Yeah.
So now Verizon is saying that Google is pushing updates directly to my phone, instead of Verizon.

In any event, I’ll wait for the next OTA, which I’m guessing Verizon is working on. Gee thanks VZW. I understand when patches go sideways or unexpected bugs creep in. But don’t tell me another vendor is patching my OS on your phone. Really.

Right on cue, Verizon Wireless makes the Gingerbread update available for my DX. It’s downloading now via wifi as I type this post, at 57%. Heading to bed but will post impressions tomorrow at some point. I’m hoping for some speed improvements as well as battey life, since I’m a performance freak. More later.

So I finally got around to upgrading from Autonooter to a full CM7 rom on th Nook Color. The wife (who owns it) was tired of switching between the BN gui and the sort-of android soft keys & market. So, I loaded cm_encore_full-41.zip on via clockwork and then loaded gapps-gb-20110307-signed.zip on for Market access, and away I went.

Works Beautifully. Huge props to the cyanogenmod folks for this. Now I’m tempted to pick up a 2nd one for my own fun..

For the record, these are the steps to do everything, cuz I can’t ever remember anything:

1. Burn the clockwork image. I’m using the 8GB card version since thats what I have. Use a different one depending on what you have. Don’t dd your hard drive like a fool:sudo dd if=8gb_clockwork-0.1-ext4.img of=/dev/sdb bs=1M

this took ages so I recommend a smaller size.

2. Simply copy the CM7 zip & the google apps .zip to the card.

3. Power off the Nook Color fully, stuff your freshly made micro SD in, and boot up. You’r now in Clockwork Recovery mode. Volume buttons navigate, N button is Select, and Power is “back”

4. Go to “Mounts and Storage” and format the following 3 partitions. DO NOT FORMAT /Boot!/system /data /cache

5. Install the CM7 image using the “from the sd card” option, then do the same with the GoogleApps package

I obviously didn’t come up with this myself. Tutorials are all over the net. I simply combined & reworded everything I used from various sites to come up with these reminders that my own brain can follow.

So I installed Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10 Maverick Meercat on the Mini 9 the other day, and after a bit of adjustment to the new GUI, I think it’s a nice release. Everyrhing worked straight out of the install. With my replacement Intel 3945 wifi card, my system doesn’t need any restricted drivers to work.

Boot time is improved, and there are actually 4 work spaces, like gnome. Also, there’s a slick menu on the left side, saving the limited vertical resolution.

The only real tweaks I’ve made include disabling the user list in GDM, so you need to type the user name as well as password. This is a very portable system. Should it be stolen, why would I want to give the thieves half of my login credentials? The code to do this is:

Got the new 8cell battery for the Mini 9, and its great. Full charge reports 10:20 battery time, & I think that’s pretty accurate.

Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick is coming tomorrow, and I can’t wait to install & check out the new Unity netbook GUI. I’ve been running the x64 Beta of regular Ubuntu and is pretty slick, so I don’t anticipate many isues with this release.

On that note (and I know I tweeted about it) while we may see the bits already available in some places, its recommended not to grab them until the official release is announced due to last-minute possible changes. Full details & explanation here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1589308.

I haven’t updated in a while. Mostly, this has been due to some real-world activities unrelated to this blog’s topics of linux/gamig/other general geekery.

However, I’ve hit a drought in terms of content, primarily because I haven’t run into any issues. My Mini 9 has been running beautifully with UNR 9.04 on EXT4. flawlessly, in fact.

That being said, I’m hoping that 9.10 brings some exciting features. I hear that boot times are greatly improved, although it’s pretty fast on my SSD already. I hear that Pidgin is being dropped for Empathy. we’ll see how that goes…

I have ubuntuone installed, but I haven’t tried it ouch much. I’ll try to take it for a spin repoirt back.

Alright, the broadcom started acting up again 2 days in a row, so I wasted no more time fighting it.
Within a few minutes, I had the bottom panel of the Mini 9 opened, and the wireless cards swapped with the lid replaced. Once I added the new MAC to my router’s approved list, the Mini is back in business, just the way I like it.

Well, after tiring of trying to get the standard Broadcom 4312bcm wireless card to work again in the Mini, I’ve gone ahead and ordered an Intel 3945ABG mini pci wireless card from Amazon. I believe it’s the same as in my Inspiron 1420, and should work flawlessly.

Shipping was free, but it could more than a week to arrive. We’ll see if $30 will fix my Mini’s woes.